If you could Breakaway all over again...

[Chris is me]

Strategy wise, I never bought it when teams claimed they didn't hang because scoring 2 points in 20 seconds was "easy". For one, hang time can be shortened (1114 and 254 are great examples of sub 5 second hangs) or nullified entirely (buzzer beating lifts from 67 or 1625). So it might not even take the full 20 seconds. Secondly, many people I talked to claiming this didn't really have data on how well their own robot would score points. It just "looked easy".

That being said, my team wasted a lot of effort on hanging that we could have spent playing the ball game well, and that's ultimately more important than hanging this year. If you can't score any balls at all, you're a liability no matter how repeatable your hangs are and how good your defense is. Not kicking in auto lost a lot of teams games.

What IKE touched on is a good reason why seemingly average teams like 230 were so successful this year. They called the game very well, prioritizing on accurate autonomus shots, a reliable hang, and a few other points in between. They made 2-3 in auto, kicked a few easy points over the bumps in the midzone, and hung. They won WPI without any kind of ball magnet and played well into the eliminations at CT and Championship. 230's a good model for doing exactly as much as you need and no more.